(PatriotWise.com)- Rumors have been swirling for a while now that progressive Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would challenge Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the Senate, for an upcoming primary in New York.
However, if she intends to do so, she better act fast, as the filing deadline is April 7 for the Democratic primary in the state, which will be held on June 28.
To this point, AOC hasn’t indicated whether she would even be interested in challenging Schumer. The latter is a big figure in politics in New York, as he has served as both the minority and majority leader of the party in the Senate.
His constituents have also supported him quite a lot in recent years, and he’s considered very much aligned with their interests.
That being said, there have been murmurs that Schumer may be dropping in favor with his constituents for apparently trying to coddle to the liberal activists in his party. Some of those moves include try to push for President Joe Biden’s massive Build Back Better social spending bill and doing away with the filibuster so Congress can pass sweeping federal voting reforms.
As a result, many progressives are seeing now as an opportunity for one of their own to step in and take down Schumer. AOC is the most prominent of those progressives, rising to prominence across the nation for her policies and stances, and bringing in loads of money on the fundraising trail.
Again, though, AOC hasn’t come out and said that she’d definitely like to challenge Schumer. Last year, she did tell CNN that she wasn’t seriously considering a big for the Senate, but that she also wouldn’t rule it out.
David Petrusza, an author and historian, recently commented on the situation, telling the Washington Examiner:
“These are radical times, and radical people do radical things, but either they’re keeping it really under wraps, or they’re not going to do it. Or they would be very ill-prepared.”
Another political pundit, James Coleman Battista — the University at Buffalo’s associate professor of political science — said “it seems unlikely” AOC would even be able to defeat Schumer in a primary that would take place across New York, primarily due to the latter’s “well-established network of supporters and volunteers.”
Battista continued:
“On the other hand, it was unlikely that she would defeat [former Representative Joe] Crowley, and yet here we are.”
Battista was commenting on AOC taking down Crowley in 2018 in the Democratic primary. Before that election, Crowley had served in the House for 20 years and was a member of the Democratic leadership in the lower chamber.
But, as Battista added, the “dense, very heavily Democratic district” AOC currently represents might be a better match for her, since a smaller cadre of very deep supporters can knock on a higher proportion of doors in her target areas, as opposed to the numbers you’d need to knock on doors in suburban and exurban areas.
“Another difference is that everyone knows she’s a credible threat, so it seems unlikely that Schumer would sleepwalk through the primary the way that Crowley did.”
